Aimee Connolly: 'Showing my journeys to the factories eliminates any doubt around the whole process at Sculpted'

Beauty entrepreneur Aimee Connolly has her sights firmly set on world domination and with famous fans, new launches and a flagship store she’s definitely on her way. She speaks to Jen Stevens about what’s coming next

Sat, 22 Oct, 2022 - 02:00

Jen Stevens

Chances are, if you’re an Irish woman, you own some makeup created by Aimee Connolly. The entrepreneur’s eponymous brand Sculpted by Aimee is just five years old but regularly tops the retailer charts.

The day before we chat, international superstar makeup artist Katie Jane Hughes featured a Sculpted by Aimee blush on her Instagram. KJH has almost 800,000 followers on the platform and for many is the oracle of makeup.

The month previously Sunday Times beauty director Sarah Jossel chose Aimee’s bestselling Second Skin foundation as one of her favourite beauty products of all time.

Two titans of the beauty industry sharing her brand is a huge deal, but Aimee is very calm and considered about it, as she is about everything she does.

“It’s obviously all amazing, but it is really, really tough work behind the scenes. I mean those things are brilliant moments for us, but not everything always translates to sales. It’s such a hard graft in a new market, it is constant but it’s amazing that we’re having those breakthroughs and I really feel like there’s momentum behind us now. We’re launching in-store in the UK and that’s really needed, we definitely feel that omni-channel works for us, the business of having online but also somewhere in-store is really important. So that’s like the closing ring to us in the UK.”

Aimee Connolly: "It’s such a hard graft in a new market, it is constant but it’s amazing that we’re having those breakthroughs"

The in-store launch that Aimee is talking about is actually 100 of the top-performing Boots stores in the UK, so is a pretty big deal but she wears it lightly. The UK move comes at the same time as a launch of a new line of foundation called Satin Silk. A flagship store opened just weeks ago on Grafton Street in Dublin and the team had a successful pop-up at Electric Picnic. It’s all go and I wonder about the number of hours Aimee works, but it doesn’t faze the founder at all.

"I really adore it and sometimes people might ask about my work-life balance, but I feel like I have a balance and I feel really happy. I’m so excited by it all and completely addicted to it. I’d love to talk about business, read about business, and laugh about business every hour of the day. It’s not just me, the team works really hard too, but I think it comes from the top.

"If you’re going in to work somewhere and you can see that the boss really loves it and is really passionate about it and really works hard, that filters down. I’m blessed with the team we’ve built because they genuinely care. If you don’t genuinely care about a start-up, it’s really tough to get it off the ground because, you know, it takes more and more effort. We have a lot of people who have come from big corporations like Boots and it’s a completely different chaotic way of working in a start-up.

"The team is growing and, don’t get me wrong, it’s going to be really intense over the next few weeks, I have actually had a chat with the team about it because I understand it’s really stressful and no one’s ever going to work to the level that I do nor should I expect that; it’s my company, my baby. But yeah, I do work a lot but like, it’s grand, you know, still a great life, perfect.” I point out that she didn’t tell me if she’s working 20-hour days and she laughs, so I’m assuming there’s very little room for down time.

Aimee Connolly: "sometimes people might ask about my work-life balance, but I feel like I have a balance and I feel really happy"

This incredible work ethic is nothing new. Aimee studied business and French in University College Dublin but had no plans to continue down the traditional finance route that her classmates had planned.

“A lot of my peers went into the big four and work in varying levels of marketing or financial services. But it’s funny, I always knew I was never going to do that and when I was watching my peers at the graduate programme forums, I was just like, ‘Oh, I’m actually going to do my own brand, it’s going to be great. I haven’t figured it out yet, but I’m just going to Google manufacturers in Europe now and I’m going to hop over to Manchester for a meeting!’

“I was really lucky because I started in Urban Decay when I was 16, so I worked every Saturday and Sunday all through fourth, fifth, and sixth year, then when I finished my leaving cert, I went to Mac for a year, then I started working freelance and I was also studying full time during the week. So by the time I was graduating at 22, I had six years in makeup built up. I had started an academy in a hotel in the Beacon Quarter in Sandyford, I was doing brides, I was doing editorial, I had gotten so much experience that I was fully ready to take on a brand. I just didn’t even consider doing anything else. I was so, so lucky, it was the right time right place.”

Aimee Connolly: "I was so, so lucky, it was the right time right place."

While there may have been a little bit of luck involved, Aimee’s success is definitely down to her business acumen and her knowledge of the beauty industry. White-label products (where a makeup artist or influencer buys readymade lotions and potions and adds their name and logo to them) are all too common but Sculpted is absolutely the brainchild of Aimee and is manufactured in Korea — widely known to be the world’s skincare experts. Aimee couldn’t wait to get back over to work with her factories when travel restrictions lifted.

“I was so excited to go back, we had made it work remotely, but I feel like particularly with big-tier projects that revolved around complexion given all the shades we do and the complexities around them I just had to be there. Going over there just saves, honestly, about six months of back and forth. If you can imagine that we’re confirming for 30 shades for Second Skin for example and we’re making them from scratch, that’s the factory creating samples in a week, sending it to us in a week, me giving feedback, trying to describe what I’m describing, then going back and forth.

“The difference is that I could do all the shade confirmations in two days over there because I could physically mix in a bit of yellow or red or black and we can test it together. There was one shade that I’d rejected 25 times in those two days. If you consider that in terms of the transits back and forth, I mean, you’re talking a year.”

Aimee Connolly: "This was me out of college going, ‘Hi let’s do this’."

Aimee shows a lot of behind the scenes of running a beauty start-up on her social media accounts which gives a fascinating insight into how it all operates and showing those factory visits in Korea definitely dispelled any thoughts that this was not a fully fledged brand of its own.

“I feel like from the start, even on social [media] people saw that there was no investor, there was no co-founder. This was me out of college going, ‘Hi let’s do this’. And I think showing my journeys to the factories really eliminates any doubt around how involved someone is or how the whole process is happening. I’d nearly go as far as saying my socials are so boring because it only revolves around work because that is my 100% day-to-day life.”

There are comparisons to massive brands like Charlotte Tilbury that might make another founder nervous, but Aimee is delighted.

“I think for me, I look at us as a brand and yes, we are an Irish brand, but I think I’ve always thought bigger. We would look at the global players and say, ‘Right, what are they doing?’ Because there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be doing that or that we shouldn’t be better. I’m always trying to think bigger and dream higher. I love Irish brands and it’s really important to me, but I think yes, we’re Irish but we’re also global.”

Before she completes world domination though she has another project to complete. In July, while on holidays in Mexico she got engaged to long-time love John. The couple plan to get married towards the end of next summer and in true Aimee style she’s very laid back about the whole thing.

“I think we’re both quite chilled about it all, we’d like to do it abroad and I just want a really nice venue that people love when they arrive there on their holidays and everything else will figure itself out. I’ll get a dress, book hair, and I’ll do my own makeup, easy, happy days!”

I leave Aimee to do her makeup on live TV on a QVC slot and as always, she’s completely unfazed. I say goodbye marvelling at the busiest, most laid-back woman in Ireland.